The love of a mortal
by Avid fangirl for life
Summary: Clarke and Lexa god au. Lexa is the immortal protector of earth and she falls in love with a mortal.
1. Chapter 1

Okay so this is entirely au in which Lexa is a goddess and Clarke a mortal just because I needed to write it.

There are times, when the earth is sleeping below you, that you actually feel alone. Most of the time you can feel the hum and whir of the voices and minds that live beneath your feet. It's a strange feeling, being so far away yet feeling so connected, it makes you feel lonely a lot of the time. It's ridiculous, you're a deity, an immortal, a divine being, you shouldn't allow such weaknesses to take root in you. The truth is though the seeds of loneliness began to take root many a millennia ago, and by the time you realised they were there they were too strong to root out.

When the world sleeps, it makes you feel more at ease, sometimes it is almost peaceful. The majority of humanity sleep easy in their beds, their dreams are peaceful and their resting minds tranquil. There are the odd ones whom spend their nights wracked by terrors and their days trying to forget them, but these days they are not as plentiful as they once were.

A pass time of yours, when you are not protecting humanity from one another and upholding the fragile peace that has been formed among them, is watching them sleep. As a divine being you were not gifted with the sweet release of being able to slip away from the world for hours at a time, it makes you wistful at times. When you were placed at your post by your father oh so long ago, you became the watcher of humanity, their sacred protector. With that unimaginable power came huge amounts of responsibility, and so you must watch their every move constantly.

You watch humans sleep in your more quiet moments, their faces mesmerise you, there is something quite beautiful about the way dreams flicker across their faces. Humans are beautiful to watch, but something about them makes you very sad as well, you try never to watch the same human twice. It has become a rule of yours, over the never ending centuries, because their fragile faces age with each watch and in what seems like the blink of an eye to you, you watch them wither and fade with age as their skin sags on their bones.

Many centuries ago, you made the mistake of watching a girl. The first time you saw her, she was very young, barely becoming a woman. There was something captivating about her, although you tried to keep yourself away from seeing her you couldn't, not only because you were all seeing but because it was a need. It came from deep inside of you. You went back to watch her night after night. Until one night you heard her whisper something in her sleep that made you leave for a while. In her sleep she had whispered a name, a name she should never say. A name that made your stomach turn over and your heart feel pain. The name she uttered in her sleep was forbidden, it was your name, Lexa.

Uttering the name of the goddess was forbidden to all, they were supposed to address you as Heda, not that they knew you personally of course. If the girl had been heard she would have been tied to the hooves of a horse and dragged through the streets, if she wasn't dead by the end of it she would have been tortured for committing such a sin. So you had stayed away, hoping that it had simply been her sensing your presence around her whilst she slept.

You didn't stay away for long enough, curiosity got to you, so you found her and found out her name. Costia. It was a pretty name for a pretty, foolish girl. You had materialised in her room and she had woken up before you had left, of course she had. After that you saw her on occasion, in your quieter times. Something about her fascinated you, she intrigued you in ways no human had before.

Stupidly, idiotically, you found yourself falling for a mortal. It became harder for you to stay away. You left her small gifts if she was sleeping when you came, if not you talked. One day, you found yourself arriving slightly earlier than you normally would, you found her doubled over, and she was coughing up blood. Her mortal frame was failing her, and there was nothing you could do to stop it. You watched the mortal girl you had grown to love wither away, you held her and she died in your arms. Although you were the most powerful being on earth you had no jurisdiction over life and death. Even your almighty power could not control that, her life had ended before she was even considered an adult by human standards. The time you had had with her was selfishly cradled by you, you kept it to yourself, not wanting to share it with any one, not that you had any one to share it with. You were alone, which was how it was supposed to be.

Yet, as time passed, as you protected humanity from the threats that it faced, like total and utter destruction, you went back to watching a different human nightly. Secretly, as the decades slipped by barely noticed, you hoped that you would come across Costia's soul reincarnated into a new body. That was what the people of earth believed in, you and a full circle.

It took centuries before you gave up the search, but eventually you gave in to the loneliness you were destined to feel, nursing a broken heart and spirit as your endless watch continued. You continued with the job you specifically had been chosen for, you let it consume you if only to be distracted from the endless pain you felt.

The delicate and tentative peace between people became strained again, you heard whispers of nuclear war and radiation. Whispers of all consuming fire and death reached you, as you guarded your people from above. The whispers became more urgent as time went on, people grew wary as they began to feel as though their prayers were going unanswered. You began to set things right again, you strengthened the peace across the vast world beneath you, and for a time all grew quiet once again.

With the quiet came time, far too much in your opinion. You took up a new pass time, you began to materialise throughout the world and wander the streets for an hour here or there. During one of your wanders you spot a girl. You're in Paris wandering absently along the Seine when you see her for the first time. Her eyes are green and her hair is the same golden blonde as Costia's had been- but you can't think like that, not when you know that loving a mortal makes you weak. You have a world to protect so you can't think about yourself or the possibly reincarnated soul of your lost love.

Through the centuries that have passed since you lost her you have grown, you have matured in a way you're not sure you like. Now you know better (or at least that's what you tell yourself) but you know that you must know better. After all love is weakness and weakness equates to selfishness when you have a world to protect, any weakness you have should be compartmentalised and broken down so that it is manageable. If it becomes manageable then it can be controlled, if it can be controlled then it is no longer a weakness.

Still as you hurry past you find yourself looking back at the girl, her eyes meet yours and she smiles softly, as though she knows something you do not which is of course ridiculous. She is sketching something,but she pauses as you walk past. You get a glimpse of the drawing as you walk past and somehow you end up staring slack jawed at the picture. It is a picture of you, how you really look, not how oh are perceived. The picture is titled with the word Heda but you're almost certain your real name is hidden in there some where.

You finally manage to gather your composure, at least, enough to stop gaping at the street artist who just knows what you look like, you remind yourself that you are an immortal being with more than five thousand years under your belt. That finally helps you to fully compose yourself, before you turn to walk away you look back at the girls eyes, so different and yet so strikingly similar to Costias. You nod at her and smile politely at her, she smirks in response and raises an eyebrow. If she knows who you are she's not letting on but she must. As you turn to go you see a name sprawled untidily across the bottom right corner of her pad, it reads Clarke Griffin. At that your heart clenches tightly in your chest. Although you don't need to breath you struggle to as you head to the alley way you can dematerialise in without being seen. Doing it in public causes too many questions.

You arrive back at your post not even a full moment later, that's all it takes for you to break down. You're a celestial being, you shouldn't be moved to tears by trivialities such as writing, but you are any way. The writing on the pad had been so familiar, it felt like only yesterday that you had seen it for the last time. That hair and those eyes combined with the writing left no doubt in your mind as to who the girl by the Seine had been. Costia had finally been reincarnated, after more than three centuries of you hopelessly waiting. Now after all of this time, you weren't ready. Clarke Griffin was your soul mate just as Costia had been, but she was just as much of a mortal as Costia had been. You aren't prepared to sit back and watch her wither away and die, from either disease or age, as you stay frozen in a time stream that doesn't effect you. You can't sit back and lose her again, even if you have more time by a few year this time.

The truth is, you're destined to love and to lose and so you'd rather not love a mortal at all. You would rather be destined to spend an eternity alone than go through with the inevitable. Although the pain will be unbearable for you, you know that given time and not a lot of it, you will go and seek out the reincarnation of your soul mate, because you have spent millennia alone and untouched by a world that worships and fears, and even a mere moment of warmth from the love of a mortal girl made the endless years of aching loneliness worth it.


	2. Chapter 2

You would rather spend an eternity alone than go through the pain of losing a mortal love once again. There is something so fragile about human life, in the blink of an eye it is ended. Over the years you've watched countless lives pass, it disturbs you sometimes. At other times it saddens you greatly, they surpass the one barrier you can never go beyond. You must watch as one after the other humans fall to either illness or decrepitude or injury, you must watch as they slip past you, their souls going up to regions that you cannot fathom.

You feel so incredibly tired as you watch most of the time. You have an endless watch at your post, you are tasked with only one job, the protection of mankind. That is your sole purpose, your only reason for living, you were chosen. Oh so long ago you swore a vow, a vow to watch over humanity and protect it from what ever dangers may threaten its' existence. At first you had found it surprising exactly how much of that threat had come from within, nothing much surprises you now.

After such an endless watch you have seen humanity at its best and worse. There were days not so many decades ago when countless souls would pass you on their way to the regions above. From the stories you have heard you know that it is some sort of plain, the souls thrum around thousands of miles above everything else that exists, their constant milling around releases so much energy, it is the life blood of the universe.

For the years after Costia passed you would gaze to the skies above longingly, hoping and praying (which was foolish seen as you were the deity worshipped by the world) that one day you would recognise her soul as it zipped past you as it was called to earth to take its place amongst the living once again. Not once did you see it, no matter how wistfully you gazed at the skies. Several times you found yourself willing for her soul to be called down before its time, every time this happened you would berate yourself because, no matter how powerful you were, you held no jurisdiction over life and death. That power was beyond even deities, which was the way it should be. You didn't deserve the sacred right to rule over the dead, no one did.

Now it seemed that Costia's soul had slipped by unnoticed when you were otherwise occupied. You had thought that as she had passed you, you would have felt something. Not even for a second did you feel less lonely or warmer as she passed you, maybe that was how it was supposed to be. It wasn't that you couldn't recognise a familiar soul, several times as one had flitted past you there was something in the way it glimmered that reminded you of a certain person you had seen in your rendezvous on earth.

You supposed that after looking for so long you had finally given up hope. So she had passed you by without you so much as noticing. Although you suspect, knowing Costia now Clarke, you suppose, that she made sure not to draw attention to herself. She probably had this sparkling notion that if you met one day by surprise it would be far more romantic than you discovering her whispering your name like a prayer as she slept. You wonder if she knows that is one of your fondest and most vivid memories to date.

Your thoughts turn to Clarke Griffin, the street painter in Paris, once again. You want to know everything about her, but you stop yourself from finding out the easy way. In a strange way, although you know that you shouldn't be tempted, that you shouldn't stray too close to the girl, all you want is to get to know her from her. The way you did with Costia. You hope you have longer than a mere blink of the eye this time. You want to get to know her immediately, but after all this time you no longer feel ready. All of the years of steeling yourself, of the mental preparation melted away in the second after you recognised her.

You have to prepare yourself all over again, in hopes that this time you will be ready. Although you have only seen the girl once, Clarke Griffin already intrigues you greatly. She is a mortal girl but she knew who you were the second she saw you, she recognised you instantly, long before you ever saw her. What is even stranger still, is that she seems to remember who she was before. Normally, a soul in a new body and life retains a glimmer of who they were before. There is usually a glint in their eyes, an echo in the way they sound when they laugh or maybe identical handwriting. Clarke seems to be an exception to this rule, she knows who she was before, you're certain of it, there had been a look in her eyes that just made you know.

It makes sense, you suppose. Costia was too stubborn for it to happen any other way, she would of wanted to be remembered, you should of known that she wouldn't let go and relinquish her hold on her old self. You suppose that you're glad it has happened this way, the old Costia will still be in there. You know she will love you, if she doesn't already, it was quite literally written in the stars as every love ever has been.

It is late in the autumn when you finally decide that you are able and ready to go and meet your soulmate in her second life. The thing that finally prompted you to go t her was quite simply that Costia's soul could be on its last life cycle. Souls are not indefinite after a certain amounts of lives souls move on, you're not sue to where. That is an answer not even the gods have been able to find no matter how much seeking they do.

You know that you will find her in Venice this time. It is a city you enjoy, it reminds you of how the world was a much more simple place. You can remember how the people began to build the magnificent city across that Islands of marshland. It is a fitting setting for your first actual meeting, it is after all one if the most romantic cities in the world, even if you have seen it in its more unpleasant moments. You suspect you were right about Clarke trying to make your second time over more romantic. It's strange but you would of pegged Clarke as the more spontaneous type, she didn't seem to be the type to meticulously plan such a thing.

How she know you would be coming here, at this specific time, you have no idea. It is a rare thing to behold, Lexa The Great Heda of Earth confused, anyone who looked on such a sight could truly claim to be the only person to ever see it. Yet her actions have you baffled, how could she of possibly known?

You find her deep within the winding canals of the city. She is perched on the edge of a very old bridge, swinging her legs out over the side as though she hasn't a care in the world. As you come closer you can hear her humming a tune, it's very familiar, though you're not sure from where at this precise moment in time. It's twilight and there's a slight chill in the air, to humans of course. Clarke sits perfectly still with her arms bare as though it were the middle of summer.

It's twilight and you can hear the city starting to settle for the night, even as you get closer she doesn't look around though you're sure she knows there is someone there. Only a few metres are left between you when it hits you how beautiful she really is. There is something about her that makes her seem to glow in the evening light and you find yourself starting to fall for this girl who holds Costia's soul and she hasn't even said a word to you yet. She looks so young, so, so young.

Finally, after watching her for a very long moment, which is more than enough time for you to absorb every little detail of her and yet you still can not seem to stop yourself from staring at her, you compose yourself enough to speak the first words you have spoken in more than three centuries.

"Hello, Clarke. It's nice to finally meet you."

She doesn't reply, she just turns her head to acknowledge your presence. Her eyes linger on your face for longer than they should before she pats the spot on the wall of the bridge next to her. You sit there in silence for a little more than an hour, staring into the barely rippling water, occasionally looking at each other when you think the other isn't looking. That is, until you notice that goose pimples are starting to form on her arms and she shivers slightly more and more as the sun begins to set to the east of where you are sat.

You look around to make sure nobody is looking before you create a leather jacket for her to wear. You place it around her shoulders and when you hear her sigh in relief your heart may or may not have skipped a beat. You don't remove your hand from her shoulder and to your relief she sinks into you, leaning on you slightly. Every now and then, you hear voices pass by on either side of the canal. In the far distance you can hear voices raised slightly as teenagers pass through Saint Marks square.

You feel far more comfortable with Clarke than you perhaps should, after all she is a complete stranger to you, more or less. You promised yourself you would make the most of your time with her though and so you do. Although you would like nothing more than to find out every little thing about her you give it time. You revel in what you are feeling in this moment with the almost not quite stranger girl cuddled into your side on a very old bridge in the middle of Venice.

You revel in it because it feels normal and almost as though it were meant to be which is strange because you, as a god and an important one at that, are in charge of your own fate. Nothing to feel as though it were meant to be, and yet this thing you're doing with Clarke manages to. In this moment you feel foolish for ever trying to avoid this moment because now that you are here it seems more inevitable than should be possible.

Eventually, as all good things must the night ends. Clarke falls asleep with her head on your shoulder and you decide it is time for your night to end, you can not slip away form your duties for much longer anyway. You take Clarke back to her hotel room, being careful not to wake her, and the you re materialise at your post.

You take up your watch over humanity again with a smile gracing your lips for the first time in quite a while. You reflect upon the evening, and you try to put your finger on what it was that made the night so simple, so easy, so normal. You finally manage to put your finger on it and when you do the smile drops from your lips. It can not be, it is not supposed to be, but it is you realise with a sense of dread and foreboding.

The reason the night was so wonderful is because you felt human. You felt like a human, and that's something you can't allow yourself to do. You have to protect them. Cursing yourself, you retake up your watch and promise yourself you will stay away from Clarke Griffin, she made you feel like the one thing you can never become or allow yourself to feel like, human.


End file.
